PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — The Presque Isle City Council received updates on the status of the COVID-19 pandemic in The County from several prominent guests in its meeting on Wednesday.
Three members of The County delegation to the Maine State Legislature participated in the meeting, giving their insights on the economic results of COVID-19 within Presque Isle and the broader county. Northern Light A.R. Gould Hospital President Greg LaFrancois also spoke.
Sen. Michael Carpenter, D-Houlton, praised The County’s strict following of social distancing guidelines, which he said helped to lead to relatively few cases in the area.
Yet, several potential consequences are still to come, including a drop in municipal revenue sharing funds — a 30 percent drop in such funds would not be unlikely given the current economic situation, Carpenter said.
He hoped federal assistance to Maine could help the state and County as it responds to COVID-19.
“If we don’t get some dollars from the feds in the next package that comes out of Washington, we are going to be hurting,” Carpenter said.
The strict following of social distancing guidelines would allow Aroostook County to be “ahead of the curve” as it reopens, said Rep. Harold “Trey Stwart III, R-Presque Isle — who is running for Carpenter’s state Senate seat.
It is going to be a slow transition to normalcy for Maine’s economy, Stewart said. Stewart said he is in frequent contact with the Maine Department of Labor — along with his constituents — on reopening matters.
“I think there are going to be a lot of lessons learned,” Stewart said. “But in terms of a sudden fix, I don’t think there’s a lot of promise there.”
Rep. David McCrea, D-Fort Fairfield, said that he was proud of how The County — whose residents are often characterized as “rugged individualists” — had maintained social distancing.
Yet, he said he was worried about the potential for residents from downstate coming into The County and potentially bringing new cases. For example, he said he knew many golfers who had traveled from Portland to Presque Isle to play golf.
The County’s strict and early adherence to social distancing had allowed its residents to avoid the worst of the pandemic so far, LaFrancois said. As of Monday, the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported a total of six confirmed cases in The County, two of which are active.
“It’s not just because we are so spread out and rural,” LaFrancois said. “We are both of those things, but we also took the recommendations seriously.”
The main threat to residents is if the virus spreads to congregate living in The County — especially nursing homes — or if someone sick with the virus brings it in from outside, he said.
After conducting more than 200 tests, A.R. Gould has yet to receive a positive test for the virus, LaFrancois said.
Besides providing an update on the current state of COVID-19, the council also voted on and heard updates about several critical local matters.
The council voted unanimously to allow City Manager Martin Puckett to enlist a traffic engineer to conduct a study of the intersection of Chapman Road and Riverside Drive. In April’s meeting, Puckett said that a three-way stop would significantly improve pedestrian safety at the intersection.
But U.S. Department of Transportation regulations do not allow a stop sign to be at the same location as the flashing beacon currently at that intersection, Public Services Director Dana Fowler said.
Possible remedies suggested by the council and Fowler included moving the flashing beacon to the south, removing the beacon or putting the stop sign on the southern part of Chapman Road.
Fowler said that a traffic engineer with the Maine Department of Transportation had offered to conduct the study at no cost to the city, which Council Chair Kevin Freeman said would likely be the path forward.
The city’s assessing department had determined that a change in property tax policy was required to equalize an unfair disadvantage for commercial renting businesses, city assessor Lewis Cousins said.
While hotels and motels are required to pay Business Personal Property tax on all equipment including furnishings, Airbnb and other online renters were previously not required to do the same.
The department will correct this “inequity” by requiring all internet rental units and owners of two or more rental units or buildings to report their business personal property and to assess its value, Cousins said. He said a “flat rate” would be applied if owners fail to meet their reporting obligations.
“We’re going to treat them the same as a hotel room is what it comes down to,” Cousins said.
Cousins was able to move forward on the matter without a council vote, though he did consider their opinions, he said. Councilors seemed to react positively to the measure.
The next city council meeting will be held at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, June 3. Freeman said that that meeting would likely be held in-person in the city council chambers — the first time the council has done so since its March 4 meeting.
Councilors and the public will be required to sit six feet apart, he said. Masks may be necessary and any councilor who is uncomfortable with an in-person meeting will be able to attend remotely.
All of the councilors were in attendance on the Zoom call except one.
The meeting was not broadcast live and was intentionally password-protected to prevent a potential interruption like that which was seen at the Bath City Council last month, Puckett said.
In line with the state of emergency rules from Gov. Janet Mills, the city asked for the public to submit comments on the agenda beforehand through its Facebook page. It uploaded the meeting to Youtube on Saturday.
